NAB likely to probe issue

Delay in CDA officers’ degree verification

Islamabad - The upcoming executive board meeting of National Accountability Bureau may decide to probe into degree verification issue of Capital Development Authority officers, The Nation has learnt.Sources in NAB told The Nation that Rawalpindi bureau is investigating the issue of CDA officers’ educational degrees verification issue in its complaint verification cell under the supervision of its director general. After maturing the complaint against CDA, the NAB sent three reminders to the civic body and asked it to submit educational certificates of its officers before Eid-ul-Azha. Sources said the CDA administration ignored the NAB’s reminder and failed to submit educational record of its employees within the deadline. The CDA did not even give any positive response of NAB’s reminders. The NAB has decided that complaint against CDA would turn into inquiry in this week and take the all educational record of CDA officers into custody and monitor the degrees verification process itself. Sources said that NAB will start the investigation against fake degree holder officers of CDA and even filing of corruption references against them cannot be ruled out, sources added.Source in CDA informed The Nation that total employees of the authority are more than 15,000 and it was decided to verify the educational degrees and certificates of its around 1300 officers two and half years ago. They said that around 1200 officers of CDA have submitted their degrees to the authority for verification but more than 100 officers did not submit their degrees. The NAB took notice of slow process of CDA degrees verification issue and asked it to speed up the process but it ignored the NAB instructions, sources added. Talking to The Nation, CDA spokesman Ramzan Sajid said that 120 officers have not submitted their degrees so far and administration has decided to stop their salary from the next month. He said that HR department has also been bound to take action under the rules and regulation against those officers who fail to follow the instruction of management and do not submit their degrees. He said the NAB has taken the notice of degrees verification of CDA officers earlier but it did not give the deadline in this regard.